The Phantom City

The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune newspaper staff are evacuating their building due to rising floodwaters. In case you wonder how serious the situation is down there, try to imagine your local newspaper publishing this excerpt on their website:

Our plan is to head across the Mississippi River on the Pontchartrain Expressway to the west bank of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. From there, we’ll try to head to Houma.

You can donate to the Red Cross here.

Update: Descriptions of the devastation and chaos. New Orleans is flooding, and the Gulf Coast isn’t any better. Meanwhile, the Times-Picayune keeps on working. They have an RSS feed as well.

The Sydney Aquarium in Australia apparently had an accident with a giant exhibition tank. The tank exploded, allowing the water…and sharks…inside to come rushing out onto Hazel Swinden, 61, who was injured by some of the glass.

She now has post-traumatic stress disorder, and is suing the Aquarium over it. I have a feeling any jury will be able to appreciate the amount of stress she was under.

Of course, the sharks can just count themselves lucky they didn’t drop out on this fellow.

Link courtesy of Near Mint Heroes

Pat Robertson calls for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Pat Robertson catches flak for it and immediately claims he was misinterpreted.

Victoria Gotti comes clean about her breast cancer story…more of a breast cancer scare, really.

Robertson: Televangelist with his own TV show who uses his base to influence politics.

Gotti: Daughter of mob boss John Gotti, also had own TV show, but probably doesn’t influence politics in any meaningful way.

And Pat comes up with the bigger lie. Good going, Pat. Set that bright, shining, Christian example we’ve all come to expect from you.

Update: Apology from Pat. For saying what he previously claimed he didn’t say. Haven’t seen an apology for the lying part yet. Haven’t seen one for just being Pat Robertson either.

According to the New York Times, sales of educational software are plummeting, going from $498 million in 2000 to $152 million in 2004. This is a surprise, because the educational software industry is obviously immune to the bad economy, right? Right?

Anyway, how are parents supposed to afford educational software for their six-year-olds when they’re saving up to get them Grand Theft Auto for their birthdays?

“They’re baaaaaack…”

Because nothing says “Christian” like hanging out with Tom DeLay.

I took a short online personality test, and I realize since I started working my current job I’ve changed from an INFP to an INTJ. Seems appropriate, given the recommended jobs, but it also seems odd that a few years of web development would change your opinions about interacting with others and the world around you.

…from Merlin’s Lists of Five Things:

• Five pet peeves about eating out with Ayn Rand
• Five (presumably) untapped topics of slash fiction
• Five things I wish I could have talked out of my ass about on a weblog when I was in college
• Five things I suspect I’m not supposed to think about when watching those bands with messy hair who sound like Joy Division

Another McSweeney’s list. An example:

3. All warfare is based on deception. When the enemy draws near to you, cry out, “Look out behind you.” When he turns to look behind him, attack.

Never saw these particular comics, but apparently Marvel decided that the Seventies were a good time to release a new character based in the Fifties: 3-D Man. 3-D Man employed the Mysterious Powers of the Third Dimension to…Okay, there aren’t any really mysterious powers in the Third Dimension. Calling him 3-D Man was probably just wishful thinking on the part of the writer. The character seems about as 2-D as you can get, and is primarily memorable for a bad red/green outfit. (Get it, like 3-D glasses?)

Dave’s Long Box reviews one of the 3-D Man comics, Marvel Premiere #36, at his blog. Sample dialogue from said comic:

“Come on, Scrapper! you take him from behind!”

“That’s my specialty, boss-man!”

I don’t think the world was ever quite that innocent.

Sometimes I cringe at modern efforts to resurrect nostalgic times in comics, but perhaps I should just remember it could always be worse.

Okay, I’ve seen a fair amount of talk on the Internets about James Dobson’s disturbing checklist to tell if your child is becoming homosexual. However, Ed Cone finds something even more odd: Dobson’s June 2002 newsletter where he advocates fathers showering with their sons to affirm their masculinity. (Or, if I’m reading it correctly, give them a goal to aspire to.)